Who’s Roni?

I’m a middle-aged (50 is right around the corner!), old-school blogger excited to have a new place to share my experiences.

Why I Ramble?

That’s easy! I love learning and experiencing new things while sharing my journey through life.

What Do I Ramble About?

Mostly food, fitness, movies, music, parenting, teaching, but I keep my options open.

A Little History

I Don't Even Know Where to Start

When I started blogging in 2004, I could never have predicted how it would change my life forever.

And yes, it literally did change my life. I’m not exaggerating.

In 2004, I was a 28-year-old Assistant Professor at a community college teaching web development and multimedia. Pregnant with my first child and living a few hours from my family, I started blogging to share stories about the baby. I used my site as an example in classes, built a personal blogging platform, took photos, and experimented with different technologies. It was a fun project to keep my web development skills sharp.

With the arrival of my baby, my blog evolved to include my Weight Watchers progress, and after a month or so, I decided to make a separate page for my weigh-ins.

Roni’s Weight Watchen (aka Roni’s Weigh) page was born.

That page grew into a blog where I shared my weight-loss thoughts. I wrote about things that inspired me, shared my progress, and posted recipes. Recipe sharing and cooking, in general, became a passion, and I decided to start a spin-off blog just for my food adventures.

GreenLiteBites was born.

I was having so much fun and spending so much time on GreenLiteBites, I used to joke it was my “second child.” Blogging became a creative outlet, helping me achieve weight loss and life goals I never thought possible. It worked so well that I decided to host a community so others could use the medium to reach their own goals.

BlogToLose was born.

Traffic to my sites grew and grew over the years, and I realized I had a budding business on my hands. At the time, blogging was really booming, so I decided to get a bunch of us “healthy living bloggers” together in a conference of sorts.

FitBloggin’ was born.

Around this time, I left my faculty position. Having a full-time job, a toddler, and my own business, I was drowning. It was a hard decision to make, but it also felt right. All I could do was trust my gut.

The next few years were an adventure, to say the least. Hosting FitBloggin’ became a full-time job. I was traveling more, having fun with recipe development, posting about my running adventures, and working with notable companies like The Laughing Cow, POM Wonderful, and Quaker.

One of my recipes landed me on a Good Morning America segment, and my story was covered on Inside Edition when some weight loss company stole my before-and-after photos. I was even featured in a Wired article about blogging and running apps!

A Book Deal?!

Then it happened: a fellow blogger and I landed a book deal. We wrote What You Can When You Can and had a blast recording a weekly podcast. Looking back, it all feels like a dream. A dream that happened a long time ago, a very, very long time ago.

In 2015, I was burning out from the stress of hosting the conference, finding sponsors, writing a book, and wearing every hat entrepreneurs need to wear to make a living — accountant, network administrator, designer, developer, moderator, account manager, writer, photographer, etc., etc., etc.

I sold the conference to a third party, decided to consolidate my sites to just RoniNoone.com, and started looking for a traditional full-time position.

I felt blessed to be able to work for myself, but I craved the stability of a job and missed the camaraderie of co-workers. Going back to work was an adjustment! Actually, just figuring out how to build my resume and explain seven years of blogging as a business was hard enough. It took me over a year and about 50 applications to find a job, and I didn't realize how hard it would be returning to a traditional office environment. So, I fought hard and long to get back to the classroom.

Now I’m an Associate Professor of Information Systems at a community college outside of Baltimore, but I can’t escape the appeal of sharing online. It’s in my blood. So, here I am. :)